


With You

by Stonyinspirationwriter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Death, Depression, Established Relationship, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Halloween, Kid Peter Parker, M/M, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Stony - Freeform, Superfamily (Marvel), Superhusbands (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:20:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4281831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonyinspirationwriter/pseuds/Stonyinspirationwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Steve don't seem to meet eye to eye these days. Normally an attentive parent, Tony has been aloof lately. Their young son seems to be coping well regardless of the circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With You

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for last Halloween, but other than a brief mention and an eerie element to the story, it really has nothing to do with the holiday. I tagged it as best as I could without giving anything away, but be cautious anyway. Im pretty proud of this one. Please let me know what you think!

It wasn’t a peaceful sleep. It was restless. The kind of sleep that jerks your body around all through the night, leaving your sore and sticky with perspiration. It was violent. The kind of sleep that is emotionally draining, leaving tear stains at the corner of your eyes and a heavy heart in your chest. This was his husbands norm. It had been for the last eight months. This was how Tony slept when he did actually manage to fall asleep.

Steve had spent the entire night simply watching Tony sleep; taking note of the new additions of white hair, the much more defined wrinkles that traced over the softer ones. In just a few months Tony had significantly aged, and his aging had lost some of its former grace.

The morning alarm on Tony’s phone sounded. Tony grumbled, covering his head with a pillow.

“Come on, Love.” Steve coaxed, crouching down in front of his husbands side of the bed. “You have to wake up.” Tony tossed the pillow aside, one arm groping for the phone on the nightstand. He squinted at the screen, his fingers quickly tapping at the screen.

Alarm for school muted, the electronic voice stated. Tony sighed, sinking back into the mattress.

“Tony, don’t.” Steve warned, his face only inches from Tony. “Peter can’t be late for school again. He has a vocabulary test, a spelling test, and a math quiz—the school already sent a note.”

Tony only wrapped himself further into the warmth of the blankets, turning so his back was now to him. Steve placed his face in his hands and released an exasperated sigh. “Damn it, Tony.” It pained him to see Tony like this when he once used to be such a diligent parent.

Steve made his way to their son’s room. Peter was still fast asleep, The Avenger’s bed covers hung off the bed, exposing Peter’s royal blue onesie. He was so small—smaller than any of the other children in his class. Steve wished that he could scoop his little boy in his arms and protect him from a world that conspired to steal his innocence. But Steve couldn’t protect Peter from life, much less than he could protect him from death, and it pained him.

“Peter….Wake up, Buddy.” Steve’s hand hovered over his son’s head, fingers almost brushing his messy tuft of brown hair. “Time to get up and get to school.” Peter’s eyes twitched under his eyelids. “Peter, it’s Papa.”

Peter opened his eyes then, squinting at Steve. Then his large brown eyes widened and he met Steve with a beautifully warm smile. “Papa”, he cooed.

“Hey, Peter Pan”, Steve said, returning the smile.

“I thought you had left me.”

“I could never leave you”, Steve said, a sad smile on his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Daddy’s running late this morning, why don’t you help him out by getting up and dressed.”

Peter yawned. “Can I stay home with you? I don’t want to go to school.”

Steve forced a smile. “No, you have to go to school.” Peter pouted, crossing his arms petulantly. “Son, you have three tests that you studied very hard for.” Steve said sternly, matching his child’s stare. “And you’re forgetting something very important: What date it is?”

Peter shot up in bed as the realization finally hit him. “October thirty-first!” He exclaimed. “It’s Halloween!” Peter sprang from his bed and started rummaging through the closet until he found the still packaged child sized Captain America costume that Clint had gotten him. Guilt immediately washed over Steve at the sight of it.

“That’s for tonight,” Steve said. “Right now you have to wear your school uniform.”

“Stupid school”, Peter muttered, tossing the costume back into the closet.

Peter was dressed and already practicing his spelling with Steve when Tony finally came stumbling into his room in nothing but his striped boxers. Steve was startled by his dangerously thinning frame.

“Peter–” He paused and gave a grateful sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God, you’re awake.”

“I was going to wake you up in a few minutes”, Peter said.

“Yeah, sorry.” Tony hung his head. “My alarm must not be working….Got to build myself a better one.”

“Can I help?” Peter said excitedly.

“Sure, sure.” Tony yawned. “I’m gonna get changed. Make sure you eat breakfast.”

“Okay”, Peter said. “What word was I—?”

“Absence.” Steve said, staring at Tony longingly as he made his way back to their bedroom.

“Oh yeah! A-B-S-E-N-C-E. Absence.”

******************************************************** 

Tony emerged from his bedroom wearing a light blue dress shirt that was in desperate need of an iron. His hair was in disarray without his usual array of hair products. He stunk heavily of the cologne he had used as compensation for not having showered. A few months ago Tony Stark wouldn’t have dared stepping out of his house looking anything less than his best. Even during his wild and reckless days he took the utmost care in his appearance. Life has a way of changing even the most concrete personality. Life changes priorities, and changing priorities leads to changing people.

Peter sat at their kitchen island, shoveling one of his sugary cereals into his mouth. “Morning”, Tony said, messing up Peter’s hair as he headed for the coffee maker. Peter made a noise of disapproval and began flattening the hair Tony had mussed.

“Got yourself up and dressed. Now all you need to learn is how to make your father a strong cup of coffee, then we’d really be in business.” Tony poured the coffee grinds into the machine, leaning against the counter as he waited for the coffee to brew.

Back when they had lived in The Avengers tower Clint always had coffee made by the time Tony had woken up; he made his coffee strong and took it black, just how Tony liked it. Clint would probably have some ready when he arrived at the tower, but Tony wouldn’t make it there without at least his first cup.

“I’ve got to head out to a meeting with The Avengers, so Happy will be taking you to school. But I’m gonna try my best to pick you up after, all right?”

“And then you’ll take me trick or treating?” Peter asked, looking up at Tony with those big brown puppy eyes of his.

“Shit. Halloween. Sorry, Pete, I didn’t realize what day it was. I have some designs I was planning on working on tonight…” Peter’s face fell and Tony felt a stab of guilt. “But I could finish by six o'clock”, he quickly added. Peter smiled at him then, and Tony knew he had done the right thing. He had to remind himself from time to time that Peter was his main priority and everything else was just noise in the background. He’d been so preoccupied with himself lately that he feared that he had been neglecting his son lately.

“Daddy, will you test me?” Peter asked, holding up his spelling list.

“Let’s see…” He said, briefly looking through the list. “Spell ‘onomatopoeia’.”

“That’s not one of my words!”

“It’s a good word, though.” Tony chuckled. “All right, all right. Bewilder.”

“B-E-W-I-L-D-E-R-. Bewilder. To confuse or puzzle.”

“Correct. Volatile.”

“V-O-L-A-T-I-L-E. Volatile. Explosive,changeable.”

“Correct. Fickle.”

“F-I-C-K-L-E. Fickle. Likely to change, inconstant.”

“That’s great, Peter”, Tony said, beaming at his son. He was a smart kid. He was the youngest kid at his school in an advanced class, and it seemed that he would soon surpass that class too. “When’s the test?”

“Today.”

“Wow, you’re going to ace it,” Tony said. Math and science came more naturally to Peter, while English took much more effort. Both Steve and Tony had gotten accustomed to testing him out loud in order to get the words to stay in his head, so Tony was naturally impressed that he had managed to memorize the words on his own. “That’s great, Buddy. You studied all by yourself?” Tony turned his back to grab a coffee mug.

“No. Papa helped me.”

Tony went rigid. He gripped the handle as though it were his lifeline. “What did you say?” Tony asked quietly, slowly turning to Peter.

“Papa helped me study.”

The words hung in the air like the dark clouds before a storm. It was like swimming in ice water— his limbs were heavy, and there was a terrible strain on his heart as the short distance between he and Peter suddenly seemed much further.

“Peter.” Tony croaked, lowering himself into the seat beside him. “Papa’s dead.” Hisvoice broke on the word dead. He swallowed and took a breath. “Papa died. There was a funeral—remember?”

“I know.”

“Then why did you say that?”

Peter lowered his eyes. He then looked up and directed a guilty glance at the spot Tony had been standing only moments ago. “I can still see him.”

“I know, Buddy.” Tony gave an understanding nod and placed his hand on Peter’s bony shoulder. “I think of him all the time, too.”

“No”, Peter insisted, “he’s still here. He’s standing over there.” Peter pointed towards the coffee maker.

“This isn’t a joke”, Tony said, growing irritated at his son’s insensitivity.

“It’s not! Daddy, Papa’s right there! He helped me study. He woke me up this morning to get me ready for school.”

“Peter, stop it.”

“Why don’t you believe me?” Peter’s eyes began to water, and that terrified Tony because it meant that Peter actually believed what he was saying.

“People don’t come back after they die.” Tony said, keeping his voice gentle as he stared into his boy’s eyes. “Papa’s not coming back, no matter how much we miss him.” Peter opened his mouth to protest but Tony raised a palm to shush him. “I think that maybe you saw something on TV—there’s loads of movies they show for Halloween—and you saw something and wanted it to come true. But just because we want something to be true, doesn’t mean it is. Do you understand?”

“It’s not because of Halloween! Peter said, growing frustrated. “Papa visits me all the time, and he says he never leaves, even when I don’t know he’s there. He visits you too, but you can’t see him, only I can. He misses you.”

“Jesus”, Tony muttered to himself, shaking his head incredulously. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s insensitive.”

“But why? It’s the truth.”

“Because—“Tony paused. “I don’t have time for this.”

Peter began to cry. “He doesn’t believe me, Papa”, he sobbed, staring at that same place he had been staring at before.

“Peter–”

“He doesn’t believe me–!”

“Stop–”

“You were right–!”

“Peter stop–”

“Papa, show him–”

“I’m warning you–!”

“Daddy, Papa’s standing right behind you! He’s–”

Tony slammed his fist against the table. “STOP! JUST STOP IT! NOT ANOTHER FUCKING WORD!” Peter jumped, a look of absolute horror and fear on his face. “PAPA IS DEAD! HE’S DEAD, AND HE’S NEVER COMING BACK!”

Peter’s lips trembled, and he softly whimpered. Tony’s hands, as well as his right leg, began to uncontrollably shake. He covered his eyes, trying to stop the panic attack that was building in his chest.

Then Happy blared his horn outside, and Peter scrambled to grab his things. He made a mad dash for the front door.

“Peter, please—!” Tony’s sentence was clipped off by the slamming of the front door.


End file.
